this is fact not fiction, should have held them in your lungs.
the words I said are spinning, reeling; your wide-eyed dreams weigh a ton.

The sun is dreary here in the Rift. Taivas notices immediately the lack of color from the sphere above as well as the lack of heat. Ice permeates the world, wrapping it in a thick layer hardly melted during the day. Her thick coat is not enough to abate the biting wind of father winter. Almost instinctively, she flew south.

Having been in the Rift for roughly a fortnight, Taivas began to develop an apprecation for the strange area. Where, at first, she felt this place to be the home of nightmares and illusions, she now felt the place was simply fractured and ill. There were pockets of normalcy. Uwaratice, for instance, held her land with a mournful sadness that did not feel the same level of corruption as the other places she had visited.

Winter normally brought a quiet serenity to nature, but this felt different. Like poison, something tainted spread through the land. Being rather attuned to nature, the young shaman felt the earth pulse with pain, even under the layers of ice. Whatever had caused this place to decay ran rampant, leaving nothing but corrosion and hungry maws in its wake.

The painted girl wonders if there was a way to help this place heal. She had never practiced her arts on anything other than equines, though some of the elders in her order communed more directly with the earth and its heart. Even if she held the power to mend the spirits of the earth themselves, she doubts that she could fix the Rift alone.

There must be something else, some other way. Why else would it have drawn her here?

The blue expanse of the ocean causes her to circle toward the earth, landing upon a rocky outcropping, thick with ice. The girl nearly slips and falls directly on her face, but catches herself using her wings to push body back up. Lifting gently off the surface, she hovers slightly above ground, eyes seeking a smooth patch to land upon - one not so slick with ice.

Instead, she finds a strange crevice. With close inspection, Taivas discovers an entryway to some tunnel leading into the ocean. Within the tunnel, though, soft sands can be seen - something to walk upon.

Settling into the passageway, the soft glow of her pelt becomes noticeable, due to the poor lighting.

Then she notices; the passage is cased in a strange, partially transparent rock of sorts, allowing you to see out into the world underwater. "Wow," she breathes out into the air, lacking any better words.
""

taivas.